


Luckenbach, Texas

by warmommy



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Bikers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, First Dates, Hurt/Comfort, Marine Corps, Past Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Physical Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, The Wildlings MC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-02 23:45:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12736746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmommy/pseuds/warmommy
Summary: Reader is a waitress at a bar that Tormund, former Marine, frequently patrons. Reader finally agrees to have sex with him after her shift, only that wasn't what he'd had in mind.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find this and a lot more at my tumblr, warmommy.tumblr.com!

Fourth of July. Spilt beer on the worn-out surface of the bar. All the lonely locals without any family to celebrate with, long after the town fireworks show, gathered in clumps about the hazy, smoke-scented room. Raptor commanded the pool table, and you knew he was hustling, had told Davos before, but he wouldn’t do anything about it unless law enforcement rolled up.

“Know why they call him that?” he’d asked.

You’d only shaken your head, damning the looseness of your headband as it slid down to your forehead, and continued rinsing cheap glasses.

“He ripped open a guy’s stomach, here to here. Oh, and he loves Jurassic Park. Got a cool tattoo. Ask him to show you sometime.”

That bald guy with all the facial scars would probably beat his ass, if Raptor wasn’t careful.

It wasn’t a busy night, but it was nearing ten and you were ready to punch out and hand the reins over to Jon. Every time you looked at your watch, it seemed like time was actually slowing the fuck down. You filled two drink orders, argued with Anguy that the kitchen was closed after eight and he’d have to make do with chips or a pack of peanuts. You swept the floors, although there was a layer of grit that never truly left.

The air was still oppressively hot and humid by the time you walked out the back doors, finally relieved from your shift. The night was clear, in this little town of Hardhome. You could hear mosquitos buzzing by your ears, and frantically brushed your hands around to keep those blood-sucking allergens away.

Soft, gravelly laughter surprised you. You jumped. Tormund had his motorcycle parked near your car. “How long have you been waiting?”

He shrugged, a light jerk of his elbows. He was lighting a cigarette with one of those old-fashioned flip lighters that scared the shit out of you. He held open box of Marlboro Red ‘cowboy killers’ out for you, and you slipped one between your lips and allowed him to light it for you. You didn’t smoke much anymore, but it was good for calming your nerves.

It was, after all, the first time, ever, in your life, ever, that you were meeting a man. At night. In the dark parking lot out back of the bar where you worked. For a kindly man who’d been to prison twice and lost fingers in Singapore for smuggling. And the man you were meeting--a tall, ruggedly handsome veteran who rode a Triumph. You’d been friendly for a few weeks, and he’d asked a few times by now if you’d like to go and do something together, but you had always gently, shyly told him it wasn’t a good idea. Today, however. . .

You’d almost spilled good tequila, because when Tormund had walked in, he’d gotten hold of your attention. There was something about everything about him that hit you—the old, faded jeans, that cocksure smile, the relatively kempt condition of his biker beard, that dark blue bandana. You knew, vaginally and perhaps clitorally, that you were going to say yes. They’d decided for you, so you got it out first, when he sat in a stool across from you.

This was exactly the kind of thing that made your mama worry about you working at a “saloon”. This was exactly the kind of thing that made your daddy wish you’d finished your degree, no matter what had happened on that campus. The tall grass that stretched from the edge of the crumbling asphalt all the way to the distant woods seemed to hiss as the wind picked up and rustled through. Sometimes, when you were out here on a break or getting into your car, you’d see reflective pairs of eyes darting around. Jon assured you it was just deer.

“I’m not into small talk,” he said. He tucked his pack of cigarettes back up his sleeve. “I’m not much for talking.”

“Talking to other people is the hardest part of my job, harder than hauling kegs and kicking Thoros’s drunk ass out when I’ve got the graveyard shift.” You looked up at the moon, taking a long drag, hoping you didn’t seem as nervous as you felt. “I like how we don’t talk.”

He laughed again, and it curled around your legs. “Some of the best non-conversations of my life. All you really have to do, you know, is just look at someone, and you know what you need to know. I used to be a talker. Before Parris Island.”

**Rule #1 of working at the Seaworth: Even if they bring it up, biker vets don’t want to talk about it.**

Davos’s bar was always full of them, too. He said he first opened the place for him and a few buddies that served in the same company over in Vietnam, and his boy had died in the Gulf War, but the place had become a mecca for any shell-shocked former soldier with a set of two wheels in the tri-county area.

“You’re kinda new. Damn, that’s small talk, isn’t it?” You laughed at yourself and dropped the cherry, squashing it beneath the sole of your shoe.

“You know what I want?” he asked.

Straightforward. “I ‘magine so.”

He chuckled without even smiling, just a kind of percussive exhalation that you could see in his chest. He reached down the other side of his bike and pulled up something pink and hard and shiny. You took the helmet from him with a soft little awestruck grin. Hello Kitty and her red bow were depicted on the back.  
“Got that for you.”

“How did you. . .”

Tormund reached over to your other hand, where you still held your keys. You’d forgotten to put them in your bag, but the coaster-sized head of Hello Kitty was probably a damn good indication to anyone that you were a fan. “Went out and picked it up before I came back here to get you. Figured you wouldn’t have wanted to get on without a helmet.”

“I would have!” You laughed and placed the thing on your head. It was heavy, and the chin straps were kind of awkward. “I just would have been unhappy about it. Quietly. Do you buy novelty helmets for all the girls?”

He shook his head slowly, no smile. He held his hand out, and you took it. “Just you. Come on.” Tormund helped you up onto the back of the bike and told you how to sit, what to avoid.

Certain things occurred to you as he peeled out of the parking lot and turned down the old highway leading further out of town. For one thing, motorcycles were really loud. For another, you did not really know this man, had no idea where he was taking you, and had absolutely no chance against a hulking ex-Marine. The shiny new Hello Kitty helmet was nice, and helped to quell some of the worst of your nerves. Crazy, methed-out ex-Marine bikers didn’t think to buy a cute helmet for girls they liked, did they?

_‘How could you think a thing like that? So inappropriate. He’s not on meth. Obviously. Biker does not equal meth.’_

Another notch in his favor was that he wasn’t driving like a maniac just to scare you. You felt like you were going a thousand miles an hour, yes, but it really couldn’t have been much higher than the speed limit, and he was careful at turns. You’d heard about him tearing up highway from Hardhome to Luckenbach. He was avoiding his characteristic recklessness on your behalf.

After twenty straight minutes of crushing your helmet against his back and squeezing his middle with all your might, you began to relax. Somehow, you heard him laugh over the engine and the rush of wind that sometimes threatened to blow your eardrums. It went from overwhelming to exciting to thrilling, but even though you’d adjusted, he didn’t start acting like a jackass.

He wanted for you to feel safe.

Tormund slowed down tremendously when you cut down a gravel road and veered to the left about half a mile down. There was hardly a trail at all, but you were soon parked in a great, gray and black clearing, near a blue pick-up. Tormund set the kickstand down, and, even though the engine was off, you still felt phantom winds, still felt your whole body vibrate.

You pulled your helmet off and stared at the blackened forest, then you remembered. This was where that wildfire had been, east of Blackwater Bayou. You could hear him moving around somewhere behind you, heard a radio turn on, but you couldn’t tear your eyes away.

“This looks like a fucking German fairy tale,” you said, finally turning toward him. 

He cracked a smile at you and let down the tailgate on the pickup. In the back, there was a camp bed and two coolers. He reached into one, pulled out two beers, and handed one to you. “There’s no monsters at the end of this one.”

You still had on your bottle opener ring. You threw the cap into the back of the truck just as Tormund had and brought the cold bottle to your lips. “So what the hell are we doing here? You set this up nice. There’s a lot going on here. Is that bug spray?”

Tormund uncapped it and sprayed a cloud of it at your arm, causing you to jump away, laughing. “Hold still, damn it.”

You held your beer high above your head. “Quit trying to poison me!”

“And you’d be bitching in an hour if I hadn’t. They’d be feasting on you.”

“Thanks.” You rolled your eyes playfully and boosted yourself up to sit on the tailgate. He sat about a foot away from you, the both of you gazing out at the burned-out forest and occasionally raising your bottles for a drink. After a while, you snuck a glance at him. “What are we doing, exactly?”

Without looking at you, he pointed his bottle up and over the forest. “Gonna be a show.”

“Really? Hardhome finished their show at eight, and the sheriff’s department said that private citizens couldn’t shoot their own firecrackers this year. Probably because of this.”

Tormund shook his head. “We’re past county lines. The Wildlings are doing it.”

“Wildlings?”

He pointed at a patch sewn on his vest. “My MC.”

“Oh.” You leaned down to get a better look, but he didn’t move. “So long as you don’t get out a Remington 870 and tell me to start running through the woods. I’m not wearing my running shoes. Not that I have those.”

“It’s a 700.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. You’d never really heard him joke about something before. He had a bit of a smile himself. “How come you aren’t with them?”

He scoffed. “It’s not Sons of Anarchy. It’s not the Marines. I had somethin’ to do.”

Grinning, you set your empty bottle aside and hooked your arm around his shoulders, pulling yourself up close to kiss him. You’d thought maybe the beard would have felt weird, but you hardly noticed it now. Tormund kissed back, but when you tried to lie back on the camp bed with him, he pulled away.

“Don’t let me in your life like that,” he said.

Frozen in a sort of desperate mortification, you just blinked, your eyes darting around.

“Stop.” He brushed your cheek with his knuckles. “I would. I want to. I will. But you gotta think about it first.”

“I don’t--what--does it--”

The first pop and squall of fireworks erupted somewhere from the other side of the forest, taking your attention from this confusing and humiliating mishap. You loved the fireworks. You thought you’d missed your chance to see them this year, but these were bigger and brighter than the ones the town usually set off. You rested your head on his shoulder after a while, and he did gradually lower the two of you down to the camp bed, your legs hanging off the tailgate, so you could comfortably watch the show.

About five minutes in, Tormund took your hand and gripped it so hard you almost yowled. You sat up with alarm, and, although he was locked down and staring straight ahead by a hundred miles, you could tell. He  _hated_  it.

Aw, shit. He’d seen action. Damn it.

“Oh, hey,” you said before you could help yourself. “We don’t have to be here. We don’t have to do this.”

You hopped down from the bed of the truck as Tormund slowly rose, still under wraps, but breathing hard. You walked ‘round to the radio and turned it up, turned on the electric lanterns he’d hung on either side of the rails, and held out your hands to him, standing in the mix of earth and ash. And old Waylon Jennings song came on. You flexed your hands, beckoning him.

“Do you know how to dance? Come on, let’s dance.”

He shifted and stepped down. “I can dance in the sense that I can put my arms around you and shuffle my feet around.”

You clapped your hands together and grinned at him. “That’s perfect! Come on. ‘ _Between Hank Williams’ pain songs and Newberry’s train songs and blue eyes cryin’ in the rain. . .’_ ” You gave him a hug when he came closer and put your hands on his back. “ _’Out in Luckenbach, Texas, ain’t nobody feelin’ no pain_. . .’”

Waylon’s crooning was loud, but the fireworks were still louder. You wonder if it was bombs or mortars or what that was going on in his head, what he was seeing, what he was feeling, what he was living all over again. When the next song came on, you grinned up at him sweetly and pulled his hands lower on your hips.

It took a while and a few more songs, but eventually he at least painted on a smile and started moving less sluggishly. “You’re pretty,” he said. “But you’re even prettier on the inside. Most people aren’t.”

“I guess you’d know,” you conceded. “I don’t really know shit.”

You danced your way together to the cooler, danced and laughed and drank, keeping on long after the half-hour of explosions overhead. Once your legs grew tired, the two of you climbed back up onto the camp bed and watched the stars instead. He pointed out different constellations to you, the moon maid, the thief, names you had never heard before. 

After a while, he cleared his throat and stiffened his limbs. “Sorry.”

“Hm?” You rolled closer to him.

“I thought the fireworks would make you happy, but I didn’t let you enjoy them.”

You scoffed as long and loud as you could possibly manage, carrying on until his hand clamped down on your thigh and he wobbled you back and forth. You laughed, and he laughed, and you wanted to kiss him again so badly, so you did.

Tormund tucked you around himself comfortably and went into a long and hilarious tale of his gunny, a man called Mance. He even chuckled a few times himself. When he was done, you wondered if that man was still alive, and knew far than better to ask.

You tilted your head toward the blue cooler. “Hey babe?”

“Hn?”

You slapped the scratched plastic. “What’s in this one? Like, liquor? Are we just going to get shit-housed in the middle of nowhere and let the mosquitos and coyotes feast on us?”

“Uh, no.” He grew pink. “It’s. . .popsicles.”

 _‘Awwww, shit,’_  you thought, giggling against his broad shoulder. It was coiling all around you, swallowing your heart whole, and, oh, you fell in love.

 


	2. Chapter 2

July 18th–

After feeling your phone vibrate a few missed calls in a row, you decided to pull into the Taco Bell parking lot. Lots of times it was just Davos, but you were absolutely comfortable, by now, telling him to shove off when he tried to get you to come in on an off day. Of course, he normally called because he would not use a cell phone or the internet and needed something to be googled. This, however, was not a Davos call.

It was a Tormund call. It also became one of the most unusual phone calls of your young life. He picked up almost immediately, panting, and you left the Raspberry running for the A/C.

“Hello?” You leaned back in your seat.

“Hey,” he panted.

“I’m just going to tell you right now, if you’re jacking off, I’m going to hang up.”

“What? No, it’s not that.” You heard him take a drink. “It’s my birthday.”

“Seriously? How old are you?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Oh. Happy birthday. You chose for weeks not to tell me until the day of?”

“Yeah–shut up, Heather! Just shut up!”

You pushed your sunglasses up over your forehead, your brow furrowing at someone who wasn’t even there to see it. “Tormund? Do I need to let you go?”

“No, it’s just this dumb bitch is about to give birth.”

“Excuse me? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh.” He was quiet for a moment. “I forgot to tell you. I own a cattle ranch.”

You laughed, but he did not join. “You own a cattle ranch? H-how?”

“Uh, you know. Sometimes life is just–look, I don’t normally yell at the cows, I’m just worried and I’ve been sitting with her since four this morning. I wanted to see you today, but I can’t leave the ranch.”

“Do you want me to come to your ranch? I’m sorry, this feels like a super weird lie.” Just then, Heather lowed in the background. “Oops. Well, now I feel like a real dick.”

“No. I mean no you’re not a dick. Yes, I do want you to come here. Just plug The Gift Cattle in your GPS.”

“Okay. This sounds like the beginning of something I could easily regret. Could be fun. I’ll come to your Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Do you want anything from Taco Bell?”

“Is that–fuck yes, like, five burritos. And whatever you want. I’ll give you the money when you get here. Do you want to watch that?”

You put your foot on the brake and shifted gears. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it, birthday boy. Look, I’m glad you called me.”

“I’m glad you don’t think I’m an evil cow baron.”

Laughing, you pulled your sunglasses back down. “See you soon.”

“Bye, baby. Shit–Heather!”

You eyed your phone in surprise long after after he’d hung up. Shivers of joy and excitement tickled your every nerve; it was your brain that was making trouble. It was now exactly two weeks since he’d went through the trouble of setting up a charming and private little viewing party for you, which had counted as your first date, apparently. You knew because he directly stated as such. You saw each other at regular intervals ever since, but neither of you had been to the other’s home yet. Tormund was good times.

And there was the whole part about loving him with your whole body, heart, and soul. Mostly that was just scary, and you had anxious fits, telling yourself how incredibly idiotic you were, how stupid you must be, to think that you could love a person you hardly knew. Even worse was the dark being that clawed around the back of your mind and demanded to know how exactly a person like Tormund could ever care about a stupid college dropout whose family doesn’t even want her around.

‘ _But,_ ’ you thought triumphantly, wading out of reach of anxiety and depression, staring at the red Toyota truck in line ahead of you,  _‘he called me baby, and nothing he ever says is accidental.’_

* * *

If you had lived in Hardhome your whole life, maybe you would’ve seen this place before. As it happened, your history with Hardhome stretched back only a few years because it had seemed far enough away from the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and empty enough for you to create a quiet existence for yourself. The Gift was far enough out of the way, and the simple gravel road leading to the property itself was long enough not to give anything away. You weren’t even certain you’d made it to the right place until you’d gone maybe a quarter of a mile down, and immediately texted Jon.

‘If you never hear from me again, it’s because I’ve died and gone to the Tara plantation.’

The trees were so ancient and beautiful, stretching over each other on either side to provide a shady canopy. The house itself looked as though Tormund had spent months shingling the roof, repairing any structural damage, and providing it with a fresh coat of paint. You parked near the Triumph and the truck and walked around to your trunk, still taking in all the sights. Out in the distance, you could hear cows, and, somewhere, chickens.

You unlocked your trunk and took off your shirt, trading it for a tank top, and swapped your shoes for a pair of red-and-white polka dotted rainboots. You sighed at yourself, looking down at them, picking up this foot, then the other. Why, oh why, had you bought  _these_?–to go with the umbrella. Oh well. At least, no matter how goofy you’d ever looked before, Tormund had no apparent eye for such things. You pulled the trunk shut after applying some high SPF sunscreen and turned around, only to shout. There, standing behind you, was a goat that came up no higher than your knees, wearing a red bandana, chewing what looked like a wad of paper, and staring straight at you.

“Jesus Christ, what have you got now?”

You jumped and cried out again, but this time it was Tormund, and now he was kneeling next to his goat and trying to pry the paper out of its mouth. “Where do you keep getting it, Penny?”

He stuck it in his back pocket when he managed to get it away from the goat and then stood. “Sorry I scared you. Penny’s only a few months old, but she’s a people goat. Hey.” He picked you up like it was the easiest thing and sat you down on your trunk. He was smiling. “I can’t believe you came. You sounded like you were sure I was going to serial kill you.”

You hugged him close and tried to guess which parts of him were safe to kiss and which parts had gross farm stuff on them. After a brief kiss to his lips, you sighed. “Well, I’m about a hundred percent sure that you could kill me with your little finger, but somewhere around ninety percent sure that you won’t, give or take. I would not miss your birthday for the world, even if that does mean watching a cow come out of another cow.”

He tilted his head at you as if thinking, considering something carefully. “Have you thought about it?”

Your eyebrows rose. “Thought about what? I spend a lot of my time trying desperately  _not_  to think about things.”

“Letting me in your life. Remember?”

“Having sex with you?”

He shook his head, expression never shifting. “That’s secondary.”

You smiled because you did not know quite else what to do, but for however slightly awkward, embarrassed, though drunk on happiness you felt, his face still remained this same, impenetrable thing, like a marble statue crafted by Grecian hands long ago. You took a chance and held his face in your hands, but all he did was touch your legs in turn. “I haven’t even known you a long time and I still think you’re the most straightforward person I’ve ever met.”

He nodded. “I am. I don’t like people. Too many layers and complications. I like you. Very much.”

“I…okay, so, because it’s the way you like things, I’ll dispense of some layers and complications and just tell you, okay? Shit, this is hard.”

“No, it’s not.” Tormund shook his head. “There’s only one outcome that I wouldn’t like. Nothing else you can say is going to change my mind. Don’t worry about it. Just talk.”

You curled your toes inside of your ridiculous rubber boots. “Of course I want you in my life. Don’t ask me why, beats the shit out of me, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. You know. I don’t know how to pick men or women, I’ve been a spectacular failure in my love life since it began because I just allow people to treat me badly, and so I’ve quite consciously chosen not to be with anyone or have anyone in my life since I left TCU because it was just lots of trouble and police and I expect that people are just going to be pretty mean to me–”

“I won’t be mean to you.”

It  _almost_  made you misty-eyed, but you were far too well-practiced in banishing tears for him to see. “I know that. I don’t just want it to be true, like, I  _know_  that. I’m not telling you any of this to make you feel bad for me, I just wanted you to know that I’ve had lots of reasons to consider it quite extensively and, unless you  _do_  try to make a mask out of my skin, I don’t think there’s a lot that you, Tormund Giantsbane, would realistically do that could possibly change my mind or how I…fuck it, how I feel about you.” You shrugged and digged his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket, placing one between his lips and one between yours. He took the Zippo from you and lit them. “We don’t have to get into that, because all you wanted was a yes or a no, for fuck’s sake, so yes.”

Tormund considered you carefully with narrowed eyes and exhaled a long plume of smoke. “A spade is a spade.”

“What?”

He shrugged. “We want to be together, so we will. Let’s just call it and let it be. People are stupid to walk and talk in circles rather than walk a straight line and pick up whatever it is they want, so long as it’s offered.”

“If you don’t stop talking like that, an HBO camera crew is going to show up.”

“I want you. Want to be with you. Yeah?”

You nodded, although on the inside you were screaming and throwing confetti. Every second was another fucking reason to love him, and the notion was somewhat less terrifying now.

“Come on. Burritos.”

“Aww, I bet my Pepsi is all watered-down.”

Tormund laughed, just a few hoarse huffs, and pulled you down to the ground. “Come on. I got Cherry Wheat.”

You gasped heavily and touched your chest. “You did what? Ohhh, Christ, you just went down in my good book forever. Wait a second, I don’t drink at the bar. How did you…?”

“Snow. I asked him about two or three months ago, but you never would let me buy you a drink.” Tormund opened the driver’s side door of the Raspberry and leaned over to grab the bag out of the passenger’s seat. “Y/N, you staring at my ass?”

You scoffed. “Your ass is a gift from God.”

Twelve hours later, you and Tormund lay in a heap on the rug just before the couch. After a few hours of FaceTiming Heather in the barn to keep an eye on her and sitting at his kitchen table and talking about–Christ, what all  _had_  you talked about?–it had been time, and Tormund grew as anxious as though it were his son being born. He called the veterinarian, a truly sweet older gentleman who insisted on being called Jorah rather than Dr. Mormont, and they spoke as though they’d been friends for years.

Heather calved a perfectly healthy baby boy, and was very proud of her son. Tormund had taken dozens of photos of the mostly-black cow and her knob-kneed calf, and he and Jorah had spent some amount of time discussing their care over the next few days. You had never seen any creature give birth in your life, not even a dog or a cat, and the whole process was a touch more than terrifying to you, but the cattle rancher and vet seemed to have things under control. You went into support mode. If something was needed from Jorah’s Chevy, you went after it so they didn’t have to turn their attention away from their work. When someone was thirsty, you went after some water, and so on.

It didn’t seem all that significant to you until later, just twenty or so minutes ago. The sun was long set and you had went out with him to check on Heather and the calf, and, on the way back, Tormund squeezed your hand and looked up at the sky. “All this time, and you were always under the same canopy of stars.”

The pressure had been building in you until now, and while he was cursing and digging around through Netflix for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you leaned back against him and pulled gently on his beard.

“Hm?”

“Why would you say something like that to me?” you asked.

He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Like what? I haven’t said anything.”

“A couple minutes ago, outside, the thing about the same canopy of stars.”

“It was true.” He dropped the remote next to you and watched your facial expressions. “I’ve spent lots of time looking up at the sky and waiting to see a drone fly overhead or an artillery strike or…doesn’t matter. Long time, I stopped looking at the stars and looked at the dark in between ‘em, waiting for it to spread. Those little lights were always there, though. And, somewhere underneath ‘em, there was always you, and I’m grateful for that. ‘S why I said it. I say what I think and I mean what I say.”

“You’re not a talker,” you pointed out.

He shook his head. “Words aren’t wasted when I say ‘em to you, and it’s not small talk. It’s not pointless talk. You don’t need me to tell you that. Quit worrying about me and you.”

“Okay, so…” You dragged your fingers through your hair and sat up. “I think that you’re seeing through all my carefully constructed layers of bullshit, which is a little bad because I need those layers of bullshit–”

“No, you don’t with me.”

“But I…What I’m afraid of is that being transparent is going to fuck up–”

“It won’t.”

“How do you know?”

Tormund took your chin between his fingers and sighed. “I’d love to find whoever screwed you up like this and just beat ‘em with a tire iron.”

“That is the least charming thing you’ve said yet.”

He shrugged it off. “Do you think I don’t want you to love me?”

You spluttered and nearly came up off the ground.

“Hey.” Tormund kept you still. “I’m gonna tell you this and then I’m going to find this damn film because I’ve been wanting to see it since you mentioned it earlier, and we’re going to drink a few beers and watch it and I’m going to ask you not to go. I miss you when you are not around. I haven’t bothered to tell anyone it was my birthday in something like twelve years. I’m sure about you. I know you’ll love me and I’ll love you. I’m sure about you. Now, relax and stay here with me.”

“Can we at least get up on the couch?” you asked. No, nothing could ever be this fucking perfect. No man could be so good and kind, not to you. Tormund covered you up in a chenille throw after the movie had begun and passed your bottle of Sam Adams. Nothing could or should ever feel so nice.

For the first time in probably months, you fell asleep without taking your trazodone.


	3. Chapter 3

August 25th–

You entered your apartment with keys jingling and the crinkle of plastic shopping bags that hung six-deep on each arm. It was the first time you had been home in a week, somehow, and although Tormund didn’t much care for your leaving, it just seemed…proper? It was a complicated thought. You did not want to leave the lazy comforts of takeout with Tormund on the couch while a critically acclaimed drama series played in the background, but, in a sort of twisted way, you felt that you ought to deny yourself what you wanted before you (or he) figured out that it wasn’t what you wanted, after all.

You couldn’t help but sigh at the utter emptiness of the place. Right now, you’d be grateful for the squeak of a mouse. You’d spent far more time at the ranch than you had in your own apartment during the past few weeks, and you were used to Penny nagging at you to be held and cuddled, the cats that hung around the barn with kittens flitting around their legs, the chickens, and Tormund had recently begun to ask you how you felt about getting a few pigs. This memory made you smile. By all logic, he shouldn’t be factoring in your opinions about the ranch. It was not yours.

Instead of coming straight home, you’d stopped at the store first to gather enough groceries to give you a reason to stay for a few days, and you now pulled your shopping bags down from your arms and onto the table. You had red lines up and down both arms that stung somewhat, but two trips were for losers. You put away the cold things and let the rest set for now, walking through your familiar halls, turning the air conditioner down now that you were back. After visiting the bathroom, it struck you that you hadn’t been collecting the mail. You battled with the decision, but figured if there was something outstanding, it was better to know now than let the matter wait longer. Thank shit the AT&T bill wasn’t due until Friday.

 

Tormund grew restless and left the Gift to grab a drink and unwind. He wasn’t often at the Seaworth when you weren’t working, anymore, most of his attention divided between the ranch, his relationship, and his MC. He was of the opinion, however, knowing himself as well as he did, that it was better that he didn’t sit around drinking all night by himself. There were a few people he knew by face or name gathered around out front, smoking or having private conversations. One of them followed him inside and straight up to the bar. Tormund took a deep breath. Hardly even in the doors, and already pissed off.

“My name is Devin,” said the guy who’d sat next to him at the empty bar. No one else sat on the stools but Anguy and Thoros, who were conspicuously missing, and there were plenty of empties far away from him.

Tormund shook his head. “No.”

“Of course it is, my good man. What’ll you have?”

Tormund finally turned to face him. Dark curly hair, light eyes, not quite thirty, dark brown hoodie, nondescript jeans. Someone who only wanted to be noticed by a select few. “Listen.”

The younger man nodded, one eyebrow cocked.

Tormund leaned a bit closer. “Go. The fuck. Away. I don’t come here to make friends.”

After a speculative pause, Devin burst into laughter that assaulted Tormund’s senses and made his blood pressure rise. When the man eventually quit, his friendly grin was plastered across his face again. “I know what you mean. I come here to see that gorgeous  _lady_  bartender–not that Jon Snow here isn’t pretty enough on his own.”

Jon set a Guinness down before Tormund and sneered at Devin. “Asshole.”

Tormund felt a tight smile stretch his lips. “Not too bright, are you?”

Devin shrugged, still with that grin. “I wouldn’t know what you mean, I’m sure.”

“Never seen you here before,” Tormund reached for Jon’s ashtray across the bar and lit himself a cigarette. “Don’t think you’ve been here more than a few times, if any. You waited on me. Followed me in. Started to talk about one of the bartenders. You  _think_  you’re clever, but you’re not. Look around you. There’s some two dozen angry veterans here that think of her like a sister.”

“Do you?” Devin leaned back with his elbow on the bar. When Tormund didn’t answer immediately, Devin blinked like an actor in a silent film. “Think of her as a sister?”

Tormund sighed again and finished his beer. Staring forward, he rolled the bottom of the bottle over and over in a circle. “I’m going to find out who you are,” he said. “And when I do, I doubt you’ll want to be anywhere near Hardhome.”

“How come?” The unwanted attendant leaned a bit closer, his bright eyes seemingly popping.

It was a look Tormund knew pretty well. He’d met quite a few people in his thirty-six years of living, including three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and, for the most part, people fell into the few same categories without much variance. Every now and then, you meet someone who doesn’t quite fit in with the typical human population. It was with some certainty that he knew, without much need for more contact, that Devin was a narcissist, thought of himself as the puppetmaster of the lives around him, and, without a doubt, a sadist who delighted in bloodthirst and violence. Those were the people with wide, empty, echoing eyes. Devin’s eyes were like a yawn that did not cease, just jaws separating further and further until they snapped.

Tormund dropped his cigarette into the empty bottle and blew smoke from his nose. “Because the type of person you are doesn’t scare the type of person I am, and I’ve got about two thousand acres, any one of which would probably make a fitting place for your unmarked grave. Stand up, turn around, walk out of this bar and back to wherever you came from, because no one here is interested in the types of games you’re wanting to play.”

“What games  _are_  they interested in?” Devin tilted his head, with a barely visible tremble in his manic smile.

Drogo’s massive, thundering bootfalls started from the pool table. “We can play that game where we take you out to the middle of the desert, bury you up to your neck, and see what kinds of critters come out to play. Who’s this shit, Tormund?”

Devin gazed up with unadulterated glee. “Oh, hello. Where did they manage to find  _you_?”

“Gents.” Davos was suddenly there across the bar, pouring tequila into shot glasses. “Best to clear out. We don’t want Beric and Sandor coming around.”

The unwanted patron rose up like a perfectly good-natured man and gave them a would-be friendly wave and headed out with his hands in the pocket of his hooded sweater. Drogo shared a mutual glower with Tormund in the direction of the door, and then Drogo looked back to him with one of his eyebrows raised. Tormund shook his head, and Drogo returned to his game.

This was exactly why Drogo was one of his best friends of all time. God bless that massive Hawaiian.

* * *

You brushed the Oreo crumbs off your face and chest and ducked out of your living room, naked, when the doorbell rang. Coming back through the living room with your fluffy bathrobe and its sash firmly tied, you flipped on the lights, paused Rick and Morty, and got on your tiptoes to look out the peephole. You unlocked the door right away and leaned against the wall. “Tormund?”

“I’m a little drunk,” he said, right off the bat, with a little telltale sway. “Just a bit. Drogo was supposed to take me home, but I told him here.”

“Oh, you’ve never been here before. Well, it’s awful, but come in.” You closed the door and locked it after him. “How much did you have to drink? I left less than three hours ago…”

He shrugged and dropped down to the couch. “I got nervous.”

“Aw, what for? Do you want me to make some coffee?”

Tormund smiled and held your hand to his chest. “You’re nice.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be very fun to be with me if I were a complete bitch wad. Did you even eat properly? No, of course not.” You kissed his forehead. “My poor devil. You smell like tequila and Guinness.”

“Are you  _naked_?”

You blushed and pulled your robe back up on your shoulder. “Yes. That’s why I live alone, because fuck pants.”

“I’ve  _never_  made you wear pants. If I’d known these were your thoughts on pants–”

“Do you want me to make you something to eat?”

He moved face first against your shoulder and sighed. “You haven’t got to do anything for me.”

“I want to.” You pulled his hair off his neck to help him cool down. “What were you nervous about?”

Tormund shook his head against your skin. “Dumb, normal shit. I thought someone was being rude about you, at the Seaworth. Some guy pissed me off. He reminded me of something out of Pan’s Labyrinth, but he went. Will you make macaroni and cheese? With hot sauce?”

Honestly, it was the cutest thing in the world, this big, drunk biker on your couch. You leaned down to begin unlacing his boots. “I can’t say no to you, not for mac and cheese. I bought six boxes today in the event you ever came over here, so I would have plenty. Listen, don’t let people get under your skin about me at the bar. Almost everyone there is like family, and dicks get tossed out on their ass or picked up by Officer Clegane. I do  _not_  want that to be you just because someone said something a little impolite about your old lady.”

“That’s what I said to him.” Tormund narrowed his eyes, trying to recall. “He wasn’t normal.”

You laughed and allowed yourself to be wrapped up in big freckled arms. “ _No_ _one_  at the Seaworth is normal. No one who would step within its perimeter is normal. I’m sorry, though.”

“For what?”

You shrugged, feeling a great peace overwhelm you. “Ah, fuck it, I’m just so happy you’re here. What do you want to go with the macaroni? Anything you want.”

“Shawarma. And I’d never let anyone call you my old lady.”

“Not that, fuck off. I’ll make sandwiches. And that coffee.” You breathed in the smell of sun and hay and sweat and leather that always clung to him and finished taking off his boots for him. “Do you want to go take a shower and wake up a little bit?”

He shook his head rather aimlessly, staring up at the ceiling. “Not without you. Later. Would you tell me if someone was bothering you?”

“Not at first,” you admitted. “It’s still on me to handle what I can on my own. I don’t get any troubles here, though. Don’t worry about it.”

“Don’t say shit just to upset me,” he protested, following you into the kitchen. Gracelessly, he folded himself against your cabinets and sat on the floor.

“Look, I moved to this podunk nowhere town to get away from my troubles, and I’ve made a little life here that I find bearable about forty-five percent of the time. What more could a girl ask for?”

Goddamn, he was too adorable, looking up at you with his chin on his knee, your precious person who’d killed. “You could ask for lots of things.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Why? Who taught you not to try?”

You laughed before you realized it wasn’t a joke. “I can’t compare stories with you, but you know what life is like. It can be like that to people that try their hardest. It’s a terrible, unfair, relentless–”

Tormund wrapped his arms around your legs and kissed your thigh. “No.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any room to complain. I’m not complaining. I’m perfectly happy, at the moment.” You flicked on the gas burner and hobbled away from the range. “Tormund, baby, I’ll fall and crack my head open.” You felt a  _zoom_  in your belly when he picked you up around your thighs and hoisted you up. “Alexa? Set a timer for eight minutes.”

His eyes widened when your Echo hummed its acquiescence. “What is that?”

“Basically a really expensive timer. Also, she reads me the news and tells me how hot it is outside.” You sat up on the counter where he put you and reached for the lapels of his camouflage jacket. Then he was all over you, full of liquor kisses and hands that hungered for something soft and familiar. “I’m  _so_  happy you’re here.”

“Well, fuck this place. Move into the ranch.”

You rolled your eyes and faked a smile as your heart raced and a tremor of panic touched you. “We don’t need that now. There’s a whole lifetime–”

“There’s not, and you know it.” Tormund’s beard tickled your neck. “Nothing promises tomorrow to you or me or the deep blue sea. No one has a lifetime, and no one has time to waste on separating themselves from what makes them happy. I’ve seen happy guys fold pictures of their wives and babies inside their pocket, talking and dreaming about all the years that they had ahead of them, growing old with the ones they loved, watching their grandchildren learn to crawl and walk and read and swim. I’ve seen them blown sky high. Seen them clawing their sand-covered guts back inside their bellies. Seen them die. Seen them go home to wives and husbands that couldn’t bear their own guilt when they looked at their half-melted faces and missing body parts.”

“Jesus Christ, Tormund.”

“You don’t believe me?”

Under his heavy gaze, you brought one of his hands to your lips and kissed it. “This is not a war.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be. Doesn’t have to be a war for terrible shit to happen, it just does.”

“Stop.” You pushed his hair back and kissed his forehead now. “I’m okay and you’re okay. Do you know where you’re at?”

Tormund nodded momentarily, visibly shaken by his own words. “I’m sorry.”

You smiled nonetheless. “You don’t have to be sorry.” The alarm went off on the timer, making him jump. You carded a soothing hand through his hair. “How about this is my home and it’s yours, too? The ranch can be ours, too. I need…I need to have backup plans. Always. I have six savings accounts, I’m not joking. Being careful doesn’t mean I don’t have faith in you. Rather, I’m lacking in faith in myself. The last time I was  _really_  with someone, it ended badly. I just need to find my footing.”

“I’ll kill the bastard.” Tormund tucked you in where it felt safe, and you sighed there, allowing yourself this.

“Go get on the couch,” you whispered. “I’ll finish the mac and cheese and bring you some. We still need that coffee.”

He unpaused the television when you poured water into the reservoir of the coffee machine. At first you could hear him laughing softly, but something in the episode of Rick and Morty you had paused had him going loud enough to make you chuckle and shake your head. You didn’t realize a tear had fallen until you saw it hit the countertop.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find this and a lot more at my tumblr, warmommy.tumblr.com!


End file.
